How You Too Can Turn a Challenge into a Great Opportunity
This is a story from my College days. If you stick through till the end, I promise you will learn a thing or two about taking on challenges in life.
In my Manufacturing Engineering course, students were supposed to spend the entire 7th semester interning at a company. They would be assigned companies based on their 6th semester results. At the company after a short orientation, they would need to define their own project and then compete it within 6 months and prepare two reports based on which they would be assessed for the 7th semester.
In those days our college had very few tie ups wit the industry and hence all the good companies were snapped up by the top 5 or 7 people in the class.
The rest would have to get into small mom and pop style engineering shops. This was a huge challenge as I would not only have to get in the top few to qualify for the few good companies and even then what if I did not like the company I was assigned
I hated this situation and wanted to change it . My cousin was a supplier for the General Motors car manufacturing plant in India. I had been there with him when he was on one of his usual business trips
As I walked past the different zones of the shop floor, I loved the place and made up my mind to try and convince the company to allow a few interns from our college. Back at my college, I convinced my Head of Department to write a letter that I could bring over to the HR over at General Motors.
I went back with my cousin . There I first spoke to the HR department who advised me to seek permission from the VP of Manufacturing. I headed to the VP’s cabin.
His secretary sat right outside his cabin and stopped me from going in. stating he was busy and I could not go in . I hung around there trying to convince her and in the hustle, he saw me and asked me to come in right away.
I marched in and thanked him for allowing me a few minutes. Then without wasting any time i briefly spoke about the possibility of creating position for 2 interns at the GM plant for our forthcoming internship He immediately agreed and allowed us 3 interns instead of 2.
I went back to my college and my head of department was overjoyed! In my 6th semester I scored well and took up the internship at GM.
Based on this episode that happened with me, here are some key steps you can take when faced with challenges
- Never be afraid of challenge.- If you are scared, it will get much harder.So never ever be afraid of challenges.
- Think of ways to turn the challenge into opportunity- You need to let your creative juices flow and break free from scarcity mentality. Think outside the box. Think how you can change the game.
- Take chances- You have nothing to lose If my request was turned down , nothing was lost.Many times we hesitate, think what others would think but believe me .no one cares that much.
Let me know if you liked the story. I would love to know how you have coped with challenges in life. cheers !
